We’re Still In It

Three points that couldn’t have come at a better time. With today’s win we manage to keep ourselves within two points of 1st, so its safe to say that another loss would have really put a dent in any progress we may have made before the Karaiskaki game.

Its an important win for other reasons too. We have to remember after-all that Olympiakos lost in this same stadium a few weeks ago and that an away game against Larissa is almost never an easy task. Today proved exactly that as, even though we got off to a great start scoring first in the 4th minute, it was still never a particularly comfortable outing for the team.

I unfortunately didn’t manage to watch the game since I was at work, but it sounds like although we managed to do well offensively, we struggled to exert any control over the middle of the pitch. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised since not having Simoes helping us out leaves a huge gap that most players just can’t fill. There is only so much Johansson can do on his own and why management didn’t think to look for another player in the off-season who could help hold up the ball a bit in the midfield is beyond me. Sure with Simoes fit we have a much better chance of doing something but with him gone the task becomes that much harder. And what happens when Johansson gets injured too? I can’t imagine how weak we’d be in the middle of the pitch if we ever lose both Simoes and Johansson for a game.

The scorer for both of our goals was, surprisingly, Platellas. I don’t mean to say “surprisingly”in a negative way because there is no doubt that he is a talented player. Its just that he somewhat lets me down when we really need him to perform but today he did everything we could have asked for. Aside from Platellas, it seems like the rest of the team was good enough to downright disappointing. Its unfortunate since I would have hoped that the two week break would have allowed us to gel a little more but on the other hand its promising that we still managed to hold on to the three points.

What is less promising though is the fact that not only did Galo get a red for a second offense during the game, but Lazaros also received a red after time was called for an altercation involving either the ref or another player (I still haven’t read for sure what happened. This means that we’ll be missing three important players for the next match after Patito was also banned for three games following an incident he was involved with at Karaiskaki.

Highlights as usual can be found on Novasport’s site: http://aek365.novasports.gr

Basketball Team Also Has a Good Weekend

It was not only our football club that managed to get a good result as our basketball club also got a convincing 96-56 win against Lavrio. The game started with a celebration retiring the jersey of AEK basketball great Georgios Trontzos and the performance of the team was a great way of honouring one of the greatest players to wear our shirt. Trontzos won five championships with AEK and was a key part of the team that won the Cup Winner’s Cup in 1968 and as such the retiring of his number 6 jersey was well deserved.

The game, for anyone interested, is available in its entirety on youtube.

Now that I finally have a chance to sit down at my PC, albeit in a hotel room in North Pennsylvania, I’ll get together a quick post on our game yesterday.

First off, check out some of the highlights from the game. Galo’s goal was fantastic, giving me even more reason to be excited about this player. Also worth noting is that gorgeous pass to set up Vargas for the first goal. Johansson is without a doubt proving to be one of our best signings of the past few years.

Just from watching the highlights, its obvious that there’s something good going here. The attacking mindset is definitely there, passing is great, and we’re making chances (how many chances do Platellas and Djebbour need to miss though??).

I definitely really like what I’ve seen so far from the first game, but there’s still a couple things to keep in mind. First of all, we desperately need a quality striker, someone up front who we can get the ball to and who has the experience and composure to take the shot that’s needed. They don’t even need to be able to score the stunners, goals like those Scocco used to score, since we have the players who can score those goals when the opportunity arises (Simoes, Vargas, Galo). What we need is someone we can really on to get the job done up front, a player like Blanco during his first season with us.

All that aside, we definitely have a solid team otherwise, but we still need to see how they fare against a strong team. We may have played well on Saturday, but with our upcoming games against Xanthi, PAS, and PAOK, we’ll definitely have the chance to see just how ready our team is within the next few weeks.

If anyone happened to catch the whole game, I would love to hear your opinions on how we played! I’m hoping to be able to watch our next game, but I’m not too sure how likely that is to happen.

Late getting this post up, but its a game worth mentioning. Going by reports I read online, it was yet another somewhat dissapointing performance from our players, though at least we managed to come away with a win from one of our tougher matches of the playoffs. Our only goal of the match was scored by Platellas in the 42nd minute, and its one worth watching:

I’m curious, would anyone know why Larissa is now playing in Aklazar and not their new stadium?

Statistics of the match paint a rather different picture from the one we saw at our last match. Possesion was only just in our favour, at 51%, while we were actually considerably outshot by Larissa (Larissa managed 11 shots while we only got 5). Certainly an important three points, but some players are going to have to start improving their game if they want any chance of being part of the team next season.

After the win in Larissa, we currently sit in first place with 19 points, while Iraklis arent too far behind in second with 16 points.

Also worth mentioning is that we made a signing recently, picking up Brazillian right back Rodrigo Galo. I’ve personally not seen him play, but from what I’ve been reading it seems like a decent transfer. The video below shows some highlights from his career until now.

Today’s match didn’t get off to the most comfortable start, with Fostiras taking an early lead. It didn’t take all that long though for AEK to even score and eventually get a fairly straightforward win.

Our first scorer was Johansson, scoring off of an Aravidis cross. I’m happy to see him score a goal considering his performance so far this season has been consistently promising, but I’m also happy to see Aravidis provide some quality balls into the box. I know we all love seeing Aravidis as a scorer, but with Mantalos gone we’ll need someone else to provide the longs balls in and Aravidis certainly seems to be up for that role.

Our second goal was scored by Platellas while Zoric scored the third, a beautifully taken shot from a difficult position and an even more difficult angle. Aside from our three scorers, the rest of the team also had a good day on the pitch, and though I didn’t get to watch the whole match, it looked like Chrisantus in particular was quite active. He still has yet to score a goal, but he was always pushing forward, moving the ball around nicely, and creating as well as participating in a number of chances. He definitely has some speed and good ball control, and he seems like the kind of player who will compliment our main goal scorers quite nicely.

Our keeper today was Vouras, and he had a good game from what I read, though really he didn’t have all that much to do. We did concede a goal though there wasn’t that much he could do on the play and the blame really lies on the defense. Aside from that, he made an impressive save later on after a well taken shot by a Fostiras player.

Our basketball team also had a good day, winning 97-73 against Kifissia and managing to remain in the top 5 of the league.

A narrow important win for us today against the second placed team of the league. It was safe to assume before the match that it would not be an easy one, and Panachaiki certainly came for the win. Both teams had fantastic chances to score more goals, and while we ultimately created more chances than Panachaiki, the visitors came agonizingly close to scoring on a number of occasions (including at least one, if not two, posts).

Our two goals were scored by Platellas and Mantalos, and I’m certainly more than happy to see both of them score. Each match I’ve watched, Platellas always seemed to attempt at least one shot outside the box and hes come close to scoring on a number of those shots. Fortunately one of his shots finally reached the target, resulting in a fantastic goal from a nicely placed shot.

Mantalos had a pretty good game today with a number of nice crosses and passes, so its always good to see a good performance rewarded with a goal. In addition to Platellas and Mantalos, Soleidis and Johansson also had very encouraging performances, with Johansson being rewarded MVP (I must say, whoever it was who scouted Johansson deserves a round of applause since hes turned out to be one great signing).

The most disappointing player of the match for AEK would unfortunately have to be Anestis. I mentioned in my last post how he seems to be very consistently making at least one serious mistake each game. I also mentioned that we have until now not been punished too often by his mistakes. Well, today we were punished. I won’t even attempt to describe what happens, you’ll have to see it for yourself in the highlight video below.

Haven’t been watching the match, but I’ve read the live commentary on AEK365 and it doesn’t sound too good. Not only are we down 1-0, but we also got a red card in the 23rd minute for Platellas, and are now playing with ten players. In addition, we had two goals called back for offside, though I haven’t seen yet whether the calls were good or not.

Before bringing up today’s win against Atromitos, I’d like to take a moment to catch up on some news that I missed from the past few weeks (school getting in the way, the usual…)

Since my last post, we played two additional league games and I’m both happy and relieved to say that the results were far more positive than our 0-0 draw against Ermionida. The first of the two games was a 4-0 win against Fostiras with goals courtesy of Dounis, Mantalos, and Platellas (who scored two that evening). For a while it looked as if the game might have ended up in another 0-0 draw, though finally our first goal did arrive in the 72nd minute.

Our next game was another convincing win, this time a 5-1 win against Iraklis Psachnon. Platellas and Dounis were both scorers again, along with Lambropoulos and Brecevic (who scored two goals for us that game). This game was our last league game for the first half of the season, leaving us top of the table going into the Christmas break. As of right now, we are still first with 28 points, though Panachaiki are only 3 points behind us.

We made a significant singing during the break with our singing of Swedish midfielder Jakob Johansson. I’ve yet to see him play, though reports suggest he’s a fairly promising player who should hopefully add some depth to our roster. Considering we were affected by injuries just before the break, Johansson should certainly be a helpful addition.

And now for today’s game… Well what can I say. As I mentioned in my post a couple months back, I felt we certainly had the potential to win, though I wasn’t quite as confident as I would’ve liked to have been. Atromitos is, afterall, a first division team currently sitting in a respectable position in the league. To add to that, I was sure Atromitos would have enjoyed to chance to get some revenge for their cup final loss to us a few years back. Needless to say, I was not expecting such a comfortable win, but of course Im ecstatic because of it. I know its still early, and I know our chances are slim to none, but it would be amazing seeing us win the Cup as a second division team.

I think this win really proves we’re heading in a good direction with this current squad. Sure we’re a young team, but up until now they’ve proven to be a focused and fairly consistent group of players. Simply looking at our results from the past two months shows that we’re starting to get some things right, and today’s result was, I feel, the ultimate display of how far we’ve come until now.

Its quite exciting really, to have such a promising group of young Greek players. The addition of some experienced Greeks and foreign players will without a doubt put us in a great position for our return to the superleague.

The scorers, as I mentioned in my earlier post, were Aravidis, Lambropoulos, Tzanetopoulos. Mantalos, as described by AEK365, was our “Maestro” today, playing a large role in many of our plays. I know I keep heaping praise on Mantalos, but I cant help but get the feeling he’s gonna be a key player as our team develops. He seems to have a feeling for the game that certain players just seem to have. I remember watching Rivaldo play and even though he was in the later stages of his career, it was clear he understood the game better than most, and always knew what needed to be done, or what his role should be.